


Five Times Gary Bell Spoke the Truth and One Time He Didn't

by Lbilover



Category: Alphas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six Gary-centric vignettes from varying points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Gary Bell Spoke the Truth and One Time He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pouncer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouncer/gifts).



> For my Yuletide recipient, Pouncer. I do hope this meets your request and you enjoy it. :-)
> 
> Warning: possible spoilers, in particular for the ending of Season 2.

1\. Sandra Bell. Set pre-Season 1. Nothing has been said about Gary's father on the show, so this is strictly my imagination.

It wasn't as if their relationship had been rock solid before Gary was born. Sandra sometimes thought guiltily that her pregnancy was less about wanting a child than wanting to save her marriage. Instead, Gary's arrival destroyed it as surely as a torpedo sank a ship: striking it below the water line until, slowly at first and then rapidly, it went under. 

Because Gary was different, right from the start. He wasn't demonstrative nor was he responsive to physical affection. He existed in his own world, drawing strange patterns in the air with his small hand, seeming to see things invisible to anyone else.

A fierce protective love for her son burned in Sandra's breast, and she treasured every rare time Gary smiled at her or laughed or let her hold him without squirming. To her he was beautiful, her strange, beautiful boy. But to her husband, he was an object of embarrassment, and more and more he distanced himself from Gary and left him to Sandra's sole care.

“He needs to be institutionalized,” he finally said one day when Gary was five years old. His expression held revulsion as he watched Gary’s fingers flick and twist and his eyes track back and forth as if following some flying insect. 

“Never,” was Sandra’s flat response. She put her arms protectively around Gary, who struggled in their confines. 

“If you won’t agree to it, Sandra, this marriage is over.”

“It was over a long time ago. Get out.”

He didn’t waste any time, but packed a bag and got out, slamming the door behind him. Sandra lowered her head to the table and wept.

“Mom,” Gary said. “Mom, don’t cry.” Shocked, she raised her head to discover Gary looking at her as he looked at the invisible patterns he wove in the air, with his full attention. “It's okay. We don’t need him.”

Out of the mouths of babes, she thought, recognizing the truth of his words, and dried her eyes.

 

2\. Lee Rosen. Set pre-Season 1.

Sandra Bell wore the troubled expression of someone doubting the rightness of her actions. Lee half expected her to change her mind, and began marshaling arguments to persuade her that allowing him to work with Gary was in fact the best thing for her child. He understood, none better, the peculiar hell that was being parent to an Alpha, the combination of confusion, pride, terror, protectiveness and helplessness that it invoked. 

Matters hung in the balance as Sandra hovered in the doorway of his office. Then she stepped inside and drew Gary in with her, and Lee released a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding.

“Honey, this is Dr. Rosen,” Sandra said. “Dr. Rosen, this is my son Gary.”

“Hello, Gary,” Dr. Rosen said, and held out his hand. Gary took it with visible reluctance, seemingly no more keen than his mother to be there, and shook it, avoiding direct eye contact all the while.

Sandra went on, “Dr. Rosen is a therapist, Gary. He works with people like you, people with special abilities like yours.”

Gary jerked his head and played with the blue cotton wristband on his left wrist. “I know, Mom. You already told me.”

Lee said quickly, “Sandra, I’ll take things from here. Come back in an hour, all right?”

“Dr. Rosen...” She bit her lip, clearly torn.

“You can trust me.” How he hoped that was true.

She stared at him for a moment then nodded. “I’ll see you later, honey,” she said, gave Gary's shoulder a squeeze, and left.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Lee invited, and gestured at a swivel chair. 

But Gary wasn’t listening. Mouth hanging slightly open, he stared intently at something Lee couldn’t see, and his right thumb and forefinger flicked and twisted in the air while his left hand supported his wrist.

Sandra had explained, as best she could, the nature of Gary’s ability. “He watches TV and surfs the Internet, Dr. Rosen, but without a television or a computer.” A human transducer, in other words, who could intercept electromagnetic wavelengths. Lee was fascinated.

“Gary, what are you looking at?” Lee asked.

Gary ignored him at first, his eyes focused on whatever transmission he’d found. Then he said without turning his head, “Dr. Rosen, you have terrible security on your server.”

“What?” Lee stared. “You mean you’re accessing the office computers? But we have a firewall.”

“You have a terrible firewall,” Gary corrected him. “Anyone can get by it. Why did you google ‘gingko biloba’?”

Lee was startled into laughter. 

Gary scowled. “It’s not funny, Dr. Rosen. You should be more careful.”

Lee sobered. “You’re right, Gary. I’m sorry for laughing. Security is not a laughing matter. Thank you for telling me. I’ll have it looked into as soon as possible.”

“You don’t have to,” Gary said. “I can fix it.”

“You can?”

“I just said I can. Dr. Rosen, you don’t listen good.”

A sobering charge to be leveled at a therapist, Lee thought. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ll try to listen better. And yes, if you can make the server more secure, I’d be very grateful, Gary.”

For the first time Gary made deliberate eye contact with Lee, and then he smiled, revealing an entirely different young man hiding underneath the protective layers he wore like a turtle’s carapace. “You’re supposed to help me, but I’m helping you. I’m helping you, Dr. Rosen.” 

“You’re right,” Lee said. “Now I want to help you in return.”

“Will you teach me how to drive?” Gary asked.

 

3\. Gary Bell. Based on the Season 1 episode 'Rosetta'.

“You don’t need Doctor Rosen, or your mother to take care of you,” Anna had said. “You’re really smart.”

He thought about that after Nina left. Nina was upset with him. But he was upset with Nina. She didn’t understand him. No one did, except for Anna. She was the first one. She didn’t treat him like a child. She didn’t make fun of him, call him ‘big shot’. She didn’t think because he was autistic he couldn’t take care of himself. She said he was amazing.

She was his friend. The first friend he’d made all by himself.

Anna opened windows in Gary’s mind that let in new possibilities, showed him what he was capable of.

But Anna had lied to him. She’d deliberately given him the wrong truck number.

“Make a choice for yourself, Gary. All you have to do is say nothing.”

The words ticked over in his brain. He had two choices: to say nothing or to give Dr. Rosen and the team the information they needed to stop people from being hurt. No, Dr. Rosen wasn’t one of them, and yes, sometimes the others were impatient with him or treated him like a child. But however it had come about, they were his friends, too, and he was still part of the team. 

_Make a choice for yourself, Gary._

He slid his cell phone from his pocket, texted Rachel.

And then he told Anna what he’d done. 

 

4\. Nina Theroux. Based on the Season 2 episode 'Wake Up Call'.

Nina was finished with the team and nothing would persuade her to come back. She'd placed her faith in Dr. Rosen, she'd allowed others into her life and heart, and all it had brought her was grief. She didn’t need them anyway. She was fine on her own. Better than fine. She had the best of everything: cars, clothes, men. Anything she wanted or needed, she could have with a simple push. And why not? Who was Lee, or Cam, or anyone else, to tell her how to use her ability?

Then one day, on a New York City sidewalk, Lee Rosen called her name. 

"Go home," she said dismissively to the very attractive man she'd been pushing, and turned to confront Rosen and Rachel, both of whom looked stressed and exhausted.

Lee smiled tentatively at her, and Nina hardened her heart. "What do you want?" she asked harshly. "Because I have things to do."

"Nina, Gary's in trouble. He needs us."

Those seven words acted on Nina with as much force as a push on the man she'd just sent away. She didn't even consider refusing. Not Gary, she thought in dismay. Anyone else, but god, please not Gary. Rosen might be the team leader, the glue that had held it together until he was sent away eight months' earlier, but Gary, he was its heart. An exasperating, infuriating, difficult heart, yes, but also a funny, sweet, endearing one. 

What Lee told Nina on the drive to Binghamton turned her insides to ice. What she saw after the rescue, when Gary was back safe in their office, made her want to weep. 

Instead, she snapped at Rachel for offering him hummus, and viewed every attempt by Bill to bring Gary out of his catatonic state as doomed to failure. And then Lee stepped in and found the way to reach Gary and bring him back. She might have known. Hadn’t he found the way past her defenses, too? Showed her a different side of herself?

Nina waited until Lee was gone, until Rachel and Cam were gone. Only then did she go to Gary, put her arms around him and give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“No, don’t do that,” Gary said predictably, ducking away. “I don’t like that.”

“Too bad,” Nina said with a smile, and didn’t let go. She knew none better how it felt to endure what you didn’t want to endure. But sometimes you had to. Sometimes it made you a better person despite yourself.

 

5\. Bill and Jeannie Harken. Based on the Season 2 episode 'Life After Death'. 

When Bill went into the kitchen, Jeannie turned from the stove where she was warming Adam’s formula and said with a frown, “Bill, I wish you’d stay in the family room.”

“Relax and stop worrying,” Bill said. “Adam trusts Gary. _I_ trust Gary.”

Jeannie sighed. “I’m sorry, but it’s hard not to worry. Gary’s autistic.” She said this as if it were the only pertinent fact about Gary that mattered. "I'm not saying he'd harm Adam on purpose, but I don't think it's safe for him to be left alone with our-" she caught herself, "with Adam."

Bill had to remind himself that he'd had a slow, rocky start with Gary, that it had taken a while for him to understand what a truly remarkable young man his partner was beneath his numerous tics. "Gary won't let anything happen to Adam, Jeannie. Remember, he's the reason Nina and I didn't hand Adam over to that couple pretending to be his parents. He could tell something didn't add up with their story."

"But you and Nina were there. God knows what might have happened otherwise."

"The way I look at is _Gary_ was there and God knows what might have happened if he wasn't.” He took her gently by the shoulders. “I care about Adam, too. I’d never do anything to endanger him.”

Jeannie removed the bottle from the warm water and wrapped a hand towel around it. “I know. I guess I can’t help but worry after what was done to Adam.” A rueful smile curved her lips. “Even that awful tasting antidote I have to take every day can’t affect my feelings. I love him, Bill.”

“You’re not the only one, sweetheart.”

Neither mentioned the fact that they didn’t know how long he’d be staying, or that increasingly they were hoping he’d become theirs permanently.

They returned to the family room to find Gary sitting on the sofa with Adam in his lap. He smiled at them when they came in, and said, “I told Adam a joke, Bill. He laughed.”

“He did, huh?” Bill said.

“Yeah, he did. He thinks I’m funny, Bill.”

"Gonna start a new career as a stand up comic for babies?" Bill joked.

Gary rolled his eyes. "Bill, I'm a professional government agent. I'm not a comedian." 

Jeannie said, obviously trying hard not to laugh, “It’s time for Adam’s bottle, Gary. I’ll take him now.”

“I can feed him. I know what to do. I fed him before, at the office, when I saved him from those people who were pretending to be his parents. Remember, Bill? I was incredible. Nina said so.”

“Yeah, I remember, Gary.”

How could he ever forget?

Jeannie glanced at Bill, who nodded, and then with a little shrug, she gave the bottle and a bib to Gary. She hovered nearby, just in case, but Gary appeared to know what he was doing. He fastened the bib around Adam’s neck, positioned him correctly in his arms, and tested the temperature of the formula on the back of his hand before setting the nipple to the baby’s lips at precisely the right angle. Adam drank contentedly, and Jeannie relaxed.

“What did I tell you?” Bill said softly. 

“He does seem to have a way with Adam,” she admitted, watching them.

Gary had his head bent and he was talking to the baby. “I’m taking care of you again. But just this time. You have Bill and Jeannie now. They take care of you good. They’ll always take care of you good. You’re lucky.”

Jeannie let out a strangled sound, and Bill put his arm around her. Damn, he thought, his eyes growing misty. Sometimes Gary hit the nail a little too solidly on the head for comfort. On the other hand if Gary said it, it must be the truth, right?

“Maybe they’ll change your name to Benjamin or Kyle,” Gary added. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Bill burst out laughing, which, after all, was better than crying.

 

6\. Gary Bell. Based on the Season 2 final episode 'God's Eye'. 

Bodies lay everywhere, sprawled motionless on the unforgiving stone floor. The silence was absolute, shocking after the uproar that had preceded it. Even the air was dead, the signals with which it normally teemed and buzzed, like the bees at Alphaville, muted as if in horror at what had occurred. 

Gary moved stiffly, stepping over outflung arms and bent legs, careful not to touch them, the way he was careful not to let the different foods on his plate touch.

“Bill.” He called his partner’s name as he made the slow, tortuous trek through the station, but Bill didn’t answer. No one did.

Gary crept down the stairs to the train platform. It was empty save for six bodies lying close together. He walked slowly forward, his shocked gaze moving from one person to the next: Bill, Rachel, Dr. Rosen, Stanton Parish, Hicks, Nina.

His eyes returned to Dr. Rosen. “Dr. Rosen,” he said, then more sharply, “Dr. Rosen. _Dr. Rosen_.” 

Dr. Rosen had to wake up, Gary thought. He needed to fix things. He needed to make them right again.

Once Gary had said to Rachel that she had to keep telling her father the truth until he paid attention, like he did with Bill. He should tell Dr. Rosen, “You can wake up now, it's over, you can wake up.” He should tell it to him over and over and over until he paid attention.

But Gary didn’t speak, and Lee Rosen remained curled on his side, like a child fast asleep.


End file.
